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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Do Critics Care When a Movie Gets Delayed?


So news broke last week that "Star Wars: Episode VIII" has been delayed.  Originally scheduled for May of 2016, the film will now bow in theaters somewhere in December of 2016.  This means that Star Wars fans will have to wait several additional months for the next installment.  This led to some people asking me if I was upset by the delay.  The honest answer is no I was not.  And this isn't because I'm NOT looking forward to the next Star Wars.  It may sound hard to believe, but I am actually very much looking forward to the next Star Wars film. Yes, I wasn't blown away by the new movie, but (if you've read my review) you'll know that I did enjoy it, and I do believe the next one will be better.  I am not disappointed by this movie being delayed any more than I was disappointed when "Kung fu Panda 3" got delayed: There are always movies to watch,

I've written about this in the past, but apparently it bears repeating.  Folks, when you do this for a living you see at LEAST a few movies a week!  Sometimes you'll see a few movies a DAY!  If a movie - ANY movie - gets delayed, you're honestly not going to notice!  Yes, there are films you look forward to seeing more than others, but you see so many movies that it's pretty easy to lose track of what is being released and when.  Also, on a personal level, I want to point out that I don't watch previews.  I've written a few posts on the subject and why I don't, but when you don't watch previews you do lose out on the all important date that movie studios want you to remember.  It gets to the point where I completely forgot that "Inside Out" existed until the week before when I saw it at a critics screening (I also want to point out I didn't know what the movie was about, which added to the surprise).

So that's one reason critics don't get too upset that movies get delayed.  A second reason I'm not particularly upset about the new Star Wars being delayed is that it was only delayed by a few months.  This isn't like when Warner Bros. delayed "Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince" by a whole year.  In that situation there were no movie problems, nothing to hold up production...in fact, the movie was in the can when it was supposed to be released in 2008.  However, that year Warner Bros. released a little film called "The Dark Knight," which made so much money it made more sense to delay a sure fire hit into the next year to help insure great profits the next year.  During that year I was still making a name for myself in my journalistic field (a website I ran about comic books got more traffic at the time), so I wasn't seeing as many movies as I see now.  That delay was honestly felt, and it did upset me.

However, I survived, and so did all the other Harry Potter fans survived as well (even though they claimed they would boycott the film unless the release date was moved back up).  The final reason I'm not too upset by this (and this is where you readers should take note) is that it's not like you're going to be without your Star Wars fix.  Disney XD is airing a new Star Wars cartoon that is - to be perfectly honest - pretty darn good.  Also coming out later this year is "Star Wars: Rouge One," one of the many spin-off films Disney has in the pipeline.  In fact, there is going to be a new Star Wars film every year at least until 2019.  So to all you Star Wars fans who are disappointed by the delay, please calm down and look at yourself.  Putting all this into perspective, there is really nothing to be upset about.  The delay wasn't very long and there will be more than enough supply of this franchise to meet the demand.

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